As we all know, Delta faced an absolutely massive meltdown in the past couple of weeks, whereby nearly 7,000 flights were canceled, and even more flights were significantly delayed. While the issue arose due to IT outages with Microsoft and CrowdStrike, ultimately the scale of the meltdown came down to Deltas crew scheduling software being…
Continue reading: Delta Thanks “Heroic” Employees With Free Flight Passes
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This is backfiring badly already. I know multiple Delta employees angry that these tickets are only confirmed in Main Cabin with space available upgrade to Delta One, rather than positive space up front to begin with.
Good intentions, bad execution. It's turning the reward into a punishment!
That's usually how they work when airlines give them out. It was the same at AA 7 or 8 years ago. employees will be able to upgrade at no cost to the highest level of service available after revenue upgrades but before non revenue. I get it when I travel for company business and it works out really well on long haul flying
Why ? Lucky to get free economy tickets
What do they expect ? Non revenue to be given priority over fare paying customers? If they complain then they should have the offer taken away from them.
Some unverified reports that Microsoft is blaming EU rules on IT integration was a factor in the global failure.
Bastain still takes zero responsibility. Suing crowdstrike and Microsoft and blaming them for all the permutations to their cascading failure of an operation is laughable. Bastain isn’t a leader. He is the opposite of Harry Truman. He always passes the buck
What about Delta's heroic customers, who had to put up with this airline's incompetence, poor customer service, long delays, cancellations, and other problems associated with what is clearly a Delta issue, not so much a Crowdstrike one?
What about the "Heroic" Passengers?
Any rewards or recognition for them?
They're the ones holding the bag!!
And all of us travel agents that worked our butts off for several days trying to get our travelers home go unrecognized.
Giving positive space D1 tickets would just further beat down the customers who had to tolerate this because you know if they were D1 there would be a handful of places all employees would try to travel to. At least MC can be easily absorbed with little disruption to the paying customer.
In truth though, Dunn deserves 360 status from Delta if he doesn't have it already.
Not true. Delta has offered positive space passes in the past and they have always been confirmed in economy with the opportunity to upgrade if there is space. My wife works for Delta and has heard no complaints in regards to the passes, only appreciation.
LOL. Those "angry" employees must all be in the entitled group of post-pandemic new hires. All of the positive space award passes granted by Delta to employees over the last decade or more have worked exactly the same way. It's a generous benefit and they never expire, even after you resign or retire. Delta even made the inventory class more generous to use these tickets a few years ago. You'd be surprised but many employees burn these tickets on boring, short-haul travel like Cancun and Orlando -- or Cincinnati -- instead of the more imaginative, far-flung places...
"Heroic" is on point for the industry-leading Premium airline that has been hyping itself.
Yeah delta never gives confirmed business passes except for chairman’s club, so any expectation for that was completely misguided.
“Heroes” other than fallen military are investment banking and private equity associates, and their legal counsels, working 150 hours a week to get a deal done and keep the economy chugging along. These are people who literally don’t leave the office for days at a time, catching mere 20 minute power naps on conference room windowsills in the wee hours when waiting for redlines from their clients and partners. This is what actual heroism and sacrifice and dedication to your job looks like.
Without commenting on whether it warrants a lawsuit, I can definitely confirm as a software engineer in big tech that many an outage has been caused trying to conform with the EU's convoluted (and often self-contradictory) regulations.
No, Julia, this is for real, and the sooner America acknowledges it, the better off everyone will be. We need to stop cheering on frontline employees, teachers, nurses, etc. They are paid poorly and for good reason. Their jobs are of low skill and low value to the economy. It may be impolite to admit this but the problem is that some people have come to really believe it.
Capitalism built America and has determined that high-end finance and law are the most valuable jobs in the country. The unsung heroes (associates through partners) in these professions literally work around the clock with no overtime pay.
The decision to give Delta's 95,000+ employees two guaranteed flight passes as a perk for employee support around the recent systems fiasco is very puzzling. Consider if you received two guaranteed passes ... where would you go in the winter months? Hawaii, Caribbean, Mexico .. all limited capacity markets. Locals in these markets are forced to move away from Delta as capacity will be limited and results in higher fares. Airlines often 'follow the leader' on fare algorithms, meaning less seats to sell on Delta will also drive up fare costs across competing airlines.
Delta employees are indeed helpful and motivated. This concern is not about the hard working employees. It is about how this free pass decision will impact Delta's most loyal customers.
Delta should not take away any options from loyal customers during this time. Consider it is Winter in Detroit, Delta employees will guarantee space on the direct DTW : HNL flight which impacts paying customers.
Cabins will be at capacity with Delta employees using their guaranteed free passes. No more chances for complimentary upgrades for 1M, Diamond Medallion, SKYmiles reserve cardholder loyal customers. Fares will be higher, especially for first class as revenue seats will become more limited (thus driving up the fares - less seats to sell = higher fares). All reasons this terrible decision impacts Delta's loyal customers the most.
The more logical option would be to change course and offer employees a monetary bonus vs. give them GUARANTEED seats on a plane for free for the support provided. The holiday season is nearing and cash is a more suitable gift. Most importantly, the cash bonus option would not impact seat capacity on airplanes, especially on sensitive capacity routes (eg Winter in Hawaii, Caribbean, etc). "Cash is King" and would have avoided creating such a negative backlash from loyal Delta customers in limited capacity or seasonal demand markets.
Urging Delta leadership to look more thoughtfully and with a more 'business sense' around their process of rewarding employees. This move impacts their paying flyers.
You’re right about that. I saw one poor CEO the other day that was so tired and weak that his pilots had to help him up the stairs of his G650.
Hmm. I think your comments are usually mostly wise. I disagree in this case. I have no clue which Delta employees you might be talking to, but confirmed economy seats is a really big deal, and a space available upgrade is great if it happens. Many airline staff know how to generally track the flight loads, with a big focus in seasonality when it comes to international routes. Perhaps some tarmac staff aren't as familiar, but they'll ask for advice from their gate agent friends. This is a very nice gesture by DL to their team...I do hope that staff of the not owned regional partners get the same...
That is so not true at all if you think if they are heroic. They may work long hours in a week but their salaries, benefits, and perks make up for it. If you want to talk about people who work many hours a week to keep the economy going then you ought to think about those people working two or three jobs a week and and get paid by the hour. Also, heroic people are our first responders such as firefighters.
I think Mr Ed is a” Talking Horse”. It called KARMA. He has screwed his best clients over & over again with his “ lets make money & the heck with the loyal customer tactics!!!
Lets see when people walk away from him
What type of “ hero” he will be to shareholders!!
For a guy that built something over a long period he is wrecking it rather quuickly!
Lol!
I think he has largely given up.
Or he took my advice to sell Delta stock in favour of Qantas stock, who knows.
These tickets WILL NOT DISPLACE PAYING PASSENGERS! When booking these positive space passes, they are booked in “K” class only. The employee cannot book this ticket and then cancel the ticket at the last second to “non-rev”. That WILL get the employee’s flight privileges either suspended, revoked or the employee terminated. The initial problem was Crowdcrap, Microsoft's negligence and Delta's reliance on them to provide a critical service. If one looks at the meltdown in totality, not only was Delta affected but most other airlines, (and yes) hospitals, hotels and the like were affected. Delta's issue was amplified as they cover "more territory" and thus the issue was amplified. Delta's employees could have just "tossed in the towel" and gone home but they moved cross divisional to help the customer and the company in any way possible. While thousands were inconvenienced and rightly angered, the employees took the abuse, the over worked conditions as best they could and pressed on. Like the major power failure at Delta several years ago, hopefully they will find a way to bring the "Crowdcrap/Microsoft" dependence in house.
@Lucky, I completely agree with you on the point made about the overuse of 'heroic'. Doing your job during a totally preventable disaster and resulting mass display of incompetence? Appreciated? perhaps. Seems the "normal and expected" is now the "extraordinary".
Regarding the passes, as others mention, I anticipate that reward availability on many popular routes will become increasingly scarce, and the SkyMiles redemptions (and prices) will rise even further. Nevertheless, we, as loyal Medallion members will continue to seek the “premium” experience and pay-up for it. Or we can just take a full dose of "F-it-all" and stay closer to home, avoiding the airline clown shows for a long time to come.
Additionally, I will be following Delta’s lawsuit against CrowdStrike as they attempt to recover their losses. I am particularly curious about Delta’s business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities, including whether they conduct tests for catastrophic failures, and if so, how frequently and thoroughly these tests are performed. I suspect that their insurers have denied any claims made by Delta, prompting the airline to seek compensation from other sources. I foresee an out of court and undisclosed settlement. Both parties can share blame.
I thought the computer industry was insulated from “failure to perform” lawsuits by law.
This was an incentive to develop the industry at its beginning.
I’m sure Microsoft would have paid out Billions if they could be held accountable.
This will be costly to the airline. Besides were the customers treated or compensated how they were supposed to be? Both are important to the company or at least should be
Nobody is saying this, Delta has never given out positive up-front passes, it's always been the same terms as here. In fact its quite generous since it's not limited to just pass riders (just one pass rider has to be present). This is a strawman comment.
All Delta employees just received their "2 Tickets to Paradise." It's time to pack them bags and leave tonight!
Are these tickets path based or segment based? And are they one-way or roundtrip? That would make a huge difference in the value of these passes